


The fault in our stars

by Hotaru_Tomoe



Series: Bullets [9]
Category: Chernobyl (TV 2019)
Genre: And angst, Author loves stars, Constellations, Light Angst, M/M, Melancholy, Post-Coital Cuddling, Valery's freckles, Valoris, and her soviet grandads so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 06:46:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19718347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hotaru_Tomoe/pseuds/Hotaru_Tomoe
Summary: "To tell the truth, I hate constellations," he confesses, "and I hate that your skin makes me think about the stars."And finally Valery understands: Boris doesn’t want to think of him as a star that may already be dead.





	The fault in our stars

**Author's Note:**

> Macaron told me: "A fanfiction where Boris draws constellations on Valery's freckles is mandatory."  
> Buuuut since there are lethal radiations in the way, it didn't go completely well.

Boris puts his forefinger on Valery's shoulder, slowly stroking his freckles and drawing imaginary doodles, until Valery chuckles and shudders.

Boris kisses his nape, but he doesn't stop touching his skin.

"Do you know that the freckles that fascinate you so much are actually a fault?"

"What do you mean?"

"They are benign melanocytic lesions. A normal skin doesn’t look like mine."

Boris is not interested in what a normal skin looks like.

He kisses his neck and shoulders, and hugs him harder.

"As a child I was so ashamed of my freckles, I was the only one to have them, and the other children made fun of me."

"They remind me of the starry sky," Boris says, and his voice is a whisper that is lost in the night.

Valery reaches behind him and touches his side, "Hey, I'm the poet between the two of us, do you want to steal my job?"

Boris doesn't answer, but kisses him again between his shoulder blades.

He is strangely silent, usually his voice is a low rumble that guides Valery to sleep.

It's Valery's turn to ask him "what?", as he squeezes his side.

"I was thinking of constellations," Boris sighs, as he traces the Big Dipper and the Orion Belt on Valery’s skin.

"You know them well," Valery says, recognizing the patterns on his skin.

"Where I grew up, light pollution didn’t exist, and we had a teacher who loved astronomy very much and had a good telescope, so we went to his house to watch the stars on summer nights."

"It's a beautiful memory."

"I don’t know."

"Why?"

"You know, the constellations actually don't exist. They are just a fabrication created by men, which arbitrarily put together stars that are far apart, and different in size and colour."

"It’s a way to map the night sky, and it responds to our need to find a pattern even in what is chaotic at first sight."

"Always the academic."

Valery smiles: "That's what I am."

"The constellations are still an illusion."

Valery would like to turn around in the embrace and kiss away the melancholy he feels in his voice, but Boris's iron grip prevents him to do it.

"Valery?"

"Hn?"

"Is it true that the light of the stars we see now comes from the past?"

"Ah, yes, in a sense: in the universe the distances are immense and the light of the stars takes thousands of light years to reach us."

"So maybe we're looking at stars that are already dead."

Valery frowns: the speech is slipping on a macabre ground.

"It’s possible."

"The starry sky could be much less bright than it appears."

"Well, you have to know that new stars are continually being born."

"But even the universe is doomed to die."

"Yes, but not today, nor tomorrow. It will happen in a time so far away to be unimaginable for a human being," Valery answers, exasperated by Boris' insistence in talking about death.

"Nevertheless, the universe may already be dead and we wouldn't know it, as we look at an illusion."

"Boris, what's up with you tonight?"

"To tell the truth, I hate constellations," he confesses, "and I hate that your skin makes me think about the stars."

And finally Valery understands: Boris doesn’t want to think of him as a star that may already be dead.

Boris buries his face in his strawberry hair and inhales deeply, then his grip loosens enough to allow Valery to turn around. He kisses Boris on the forehead, on his closed eyes (perhaps to hide the tears), and then he’s the one who wraps Boris in his embrace.

The next day Boris doesn’t see Valery all morning. A soldier informs him that he isn’t at the main camp, but has stayed in Pripyat.

In the early afternoon, Valery reaches Boris in the tent.

"Where have you been?"

"I had something to do. Can you come with me in the trailer?"

"What’s up now, another survey? Has the pit of hell released new and unknown radioactive isotopes?"

"None of this," he reassures him.

Once in the trailer, Valery locks the door from the inside, and invites Boris to sit at the table; there’s a microscope on it.

"Where did you find it?"

"In the school."

"What's on the slide?" Boris asks, noting some beige grains.

"It's a small sample of the sand you got for me. As you know, we have used less than 5,000 tons. Have you ever seen the sand under a microscope?"

"I've never seen anything under a microscope."

Valery rests his arms on the table and encourages him with a nod.

"Don't worry, you don't need reading glasses to look into a microscope."

Boris gives him a kick, very light indeed, on his shin, and Valery hides his head in his arms and laughs.

Boris looks through the lenses and lets out a small "oh" of awe: the grains, which all look the same to the naked eye, have different shapes and colours, some look like small snails, others look like flowers, others look like fragments of a stained glass window.

It's like looking inside a treasure chest of precious jewels, or a kaleidoscope.

Valery drags the chair close to his, and puts an arm around Boris’ shoulders.

"This sand comes from Kaliningrad and has also fragments of amber in it, they are the darkest ones.”

"It's beautiful," Boris whispers, then raises his eyes from the microscope, moving them on Valery: he likes it, but doesn't understand why Valery showed him the sand.

Valery leans to whisper in his ear, so that no one else can hear, "I always thought that my freckles look like grains of sand. You can see this when you look at them, instead of dead stars."

_"I beg of you, don't see the death in me, Borja, I'm still alive, I'm here."_

Boris's answer is a long and sweet kiss, and then: "Can I see your skin?"

Valery chuckles: "Why do you think I locked the door?"

"Oh, you're not so naive now."

And when Boris fondles Valery’s skin with his lips, he closes his eyes and thinks of a beach of soft sand, sunny and empty, where only he and his Valera exist.


End file.
